She looked to the razor and recoiled.
He smiled.
“I’d like you to shave me,” he said. “I see my whiskers have left you a little raw in places.”
After he was shaved, cleaned, and toweled, he rolled a cigarette. Then he sat on the bed, struck a match, and lit the tip. He took a few good puffs, then leaned back against the headboard. He smoked and watched her dry her hair as she patted it smooth between thin white cotton towels.
“We’re clean,” she said with a giggle as she sat on the edge of the bed. “We’re clean.”
Driggs just looked at her. He marveled at her delicate features and at the fluidity of her movement. He wondered about her fight and her will to live, her will to survive—what it would be like to strangle her.
—
Later, in the late afternoon, Driggs strolled with her up Vandervoort Avenue and stopped into Allie’s shop to pick up the altered dress he’d purchased.
Allie and Margie were excited to see the couple. Once in the shop, Driggs sat like the perfect gentleman he purported to be as Allie and Margie led his beautiful princess behind the screen and helped her out of one dress and into the brand-new one.
Driggs looked around the room as he waited. He was as calm as could be, but there was a small fire beginning to burn somewhere deep inside him. He could not deny that. He was accustomed to the fire, though, it was his friend, perhaps his only real friend. Oh, she tried and she believed—like the others before her—that she was endeared. And on one hand the princess was most assuredly endeared, she was in the lap of care and consideration, but on the other hand she was dangerously far from it. She was more endangered than endeared.
His eyes wandered around the shop. There were delicate hats with lace and a few hanging dresses up front near the windows. There were photographs from catalogs arranged in managed clusters and tacked to the walls. Shelves stacked with horsehair, wire, and netting covered the back wall next to the screened dressing area.
He looked up to the beams, then trained his eyes toward the front of the building, to the entrance made from brand-new bricks that were laid in a handsome arch over the door. He thought about the design and the integrity and the craftsmanship of the arch. Slowly he turned and looked at himself in the mirror. He stared at his handsome self, long and hard. Then he smiled and nodded to the reflection of the man in the mirror. It was like he was acknowledging an old pal or perhaps a new acquaintance. He stared at the man for a long moment. His reverie was broken momentarily when he heard the women giggle, but then Driggs was brought right back into looking at the man in the mirror staring back at him. Driggs continued staring at himself, then said out loud, “The anticipation is killing me . . .”
“Patience,” the princess said from behind the dressing screen.
She then poked her head around the corner of the screen and said with a smile, “Good things are worth waiting for, my dear.” He could see the ribbon edging of her cotton camisole draped around her slender collar bone.
Then, like a turtle, her head disappeared back behind the screen, leaving Driggs only to smile at the man in the mirror smiling back at him.
Then she stepped out wearing a yellow silk organza dress with a deep and revealing décolletage and moved in front of the mirror. The dress’s hem was trimmed in deep plum brocade with sewn seed pearls that rustled as the princess crossed the shop.
Driggs whistled and said, “Look at you.”
“A perfect fit,” Margie said.
“You look like a princess in that dress,” Allie said.
“Looks like? Why, she is a princess,” Driggs said, then winked at Allie.
Allie blushed as the presumptive princess turned to Driggs.
“Do you like, really?” she said.
“Very much,” he said.
“You’re not just saying that?”
“Come here,” he said.
She walked to him, taking delicate steps, almost childlike steps, lifting her skirt to reveal several layers of laced and embroidered petticoats underneath, and stopped in front of him. He reached up with his muscled arm, slid his strong fingers behind her dainty neck, and pulled her to him.
“Look at me,” he said with a smile. “I never say anything I don’t mean. You of all people should know that.”
“Thank you,” she said.
He remained holding her by the back of her head. She bit her lip a little as he stared at her for a steady moment.
Margie looked to Allie.
“Well,” Allie said. “We are so delighted . . . our first customer. Thank you.”
Driggs released the princess’s neck and sat back in the chair, looking at her.
“Turn around,” he said.
She turned, then he smiled and looked to Allie.
“Exquisite.”
“She is,” Allie said.
“Would you like to change back to your dress or do you prefer to wear this now?” Margie said. “You look so truly lovely, it’d be almost a crime not to wear it out.”
The princess looked to Driggs.
“I think you should wear it another time, dear,” he said. ”For a special occasion.”
“Agreed,” she said.
“Won’t you need matching gloves and this perfect little thing?” said Margie, picking out a small beaded purse from the display counter at the back.
“Oh, my, what is that?” said the princess.
“It’s a reticule,” said Margie. “To keep your handkerchief and perfume, of course.”
“Of course,” said Allie. “It completes the ensemble.”
Driggs turned his head slowly and looked to Allie. His eyes wandered down below her waist, then slowly moved up to her eyes.
“Good,” he said. “We’re in agreement. Let us complete the ensemble.”
Allie’s lips quivered into a smile.